Chances are that you – or someone in your organization – are thinking about investing in a marketing campaign at this very moment.
But how do you know whether this planned marketing investment will pay off? What metrics will you use to figure this out? Can you calculate a believable ROI on your marketing efforts?
For many years, investment in B2B marketing was largely an investment in faith. You had to develop a “brand”, build “awareness” in your industry, and engage in activities like PR and advertising – all activities that didn’t result in a measurable return on investment. The reason is that there were few available metrics to allow you to actually quantify returns.
And so most decision makers justified marketing on the basis that their competitors were doing it, and so it was simply a cost of doing business. And when you questioned the lack of measurable return, you were told that you clearly didn’t understand marketing.
Well, thankfully, that time has passed. Today, more and more marketers are embracing the importance of demonstrating tangible Return-on-Marketing-Investment (aka ROMI). In fact, a quick check on Google Insights for Search on the phrase “ROI in marketing” shows a strong uptrend since the beginning of 2007.
Today, 3 factors are driving organizations large and small to focus on ROMI:
- The recent economic downturn, tight budgets, and the added emphasis on cost accountability.
- The rise of digital marketing – including Internet Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and Inbound Marketing Automation – with built-in metrics and conversion tracking. Now you can easily track results, all the way from initial sales lead generation to actual sales.
- The rise of a new breed of results-oriented marketers, sometimes called Revenue Marketers.
If you are looking for an easy way to help you calculate ROMI, here are a few helpful links:
- To calculate ROMI for your website project, click here. You’ll get all the insight you need to help justify (or not) that new website investment.
- To calculate ROMI for just about any other type of marketing project, click on this link. Here you’ll find the Top 10 free ROMI calculators found on the web – for all your marketing campaigns, both online and offline.
- And if your circumstances require a customized ROMI calculator, click here to see how you can quickly build your own based on an existing, free template.
The bottom line: Investment cash is always in short supply. Especially for new ventures. Especially now. So make sure any recommended investment in marketing is fully justified by a ROMI calculation. Don’t treat Marketing any different than Sales, Manufacturing, or any other functional area screaming for your cash.
And feel empowered to question the capability of any Marketer who refuses to justify his recommendations with some hard numbers.
Post by Axel Kuhn, President, www.inbound-marketing-automation.ca
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